Tina Fey Works It

Step down Tiger Mom. Your 15 minutes of fame are almost over. The next hot topic to dominate parent dinner conversations is the amusing essay "Confessions of a Juggler" by Tina Fey in this week's issue of The New Yorker. Fey's dilemma is whether to have a second child before it's too late. She claims that "science shows that fertility and movie offers drop off steeply for women after forty."

Fey begins and ends her essay with a book that her preschool daughter brings home from the library. It's a picture book called My Working Mom, and it sends Fey into a tizzy. Did her daughter select the book because she is traumatized by the hours she works?

First published in 1994, My Working Mom tells the story of a witch mother kept busy experimenting in her lab and flying off on her broomstick to meetings. The witch's child isn't crazy that her mother has to work, but she accepts it. Reviews of the book on Amazon speak volumes. Readers (mostly working moms, surprise, surprise) seem to love it ("a great book" "conveys the message without being too preachy") or hate it ("working moms beware" "offended and disgusted"). I don't have a copy, but I intend to pick one up asap.

(Spoiler alert!)

Fey goes on to explore the pros and cons of having a second child relatively late in life. After many anxious, sleepless nights, she takes her worries to her gynecologist, who assures her that, "Either way, everything will be fine." Fey finds comfort in this, and that night, asks her daughter why she choose My Working Mom. Fey asks:

"Did you pick this book because your mommy works? Did it make you feel better about it?" She looked at me matter-of-factly and said, "Mommy, I can't read. I thought it was a Halloween book."

Priceless!

Quote of the Week

"So it is with children who learn to read fluently and well: They begin to take flight into whole new worlds as effortlessly as young birds take to the sky."
-- William James

Heart to Heart

In honor of Valentine's Day (this coming Monday), here are five books that feature hearts in one way or another.

Hear Your Heart
by Paul Showers
illustrated by Holly Keller
Collins, 40 pages
Published: 2000

Lily's Chocolate Heart
by Kevin Henkes
Greenwillow Books, 24 pages
Published: 2003

Valentine Hearts: Holiday Poetry
selected by Lee Bennet Hopkins
illustrated by Joann Adinolfi
Turtleback, 32 pages
Published: 2005

Fancy Nancy: Heart to Heart
by Jane O'Connor
illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser
HarperFestival, 24 pages
Published: 2009

My Heart Is Like a Zoo
by Michael Hall
Greenwillow Books, 32 pages
Published: 2009

This last book has a great trailer. Enjoy!

Ten Top Characters I'd Name My Children After

This week's topic at The Broke and the Bookish is literary characters you'd name your offspring after. Since I'm named after Catherine in Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, I thought I'd give it a stab.

1. Emma (from Jane Austen's novel of the same name) This one was easy because I did indeed name my daughter after Austin's feisty heroine. Her father, a fan of Emma Peel of Avengers fame, agreed.

2. Harriet (from Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh)

3. Matilda (from Roald Dahl's novel of the same name)

4. Lucy (from C.S. Lewis's Narnia series)

5. Charlotte (from E.B. White's Charlotte's Web) Love spiders, love writing, love the name.

6. Cassandra (from Greek mythology)

7.  Nick (from Dashiell Hammet's The Thin Man)

8. Benjamin (from Beatrice Potter's The Tale of Benjamin Bunny)

9. Adam (from George Eliot's Adam Bede)

10. Ebenezer (from Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol) I don't know if I could actually go through with it, but I do like the name. It has a certain ring about it.

RIP

Dick King-Smith

Brian Jacques

We're only five weeks into the new year, and already the children's book world has lost two giants. Dick King-Smith died on January 4th at the age of 88, and on Saturday, Brian Jacques, was felled by a heart attack. He was 71.

After learning that King-Smith had died, I went to my bookshelf and started rereading my favorite series of his, early chapter books that feature a small, but determined girl named Sophie. Yes, King-Smith is justifiably famous for his animal stories, most notably The Sheep Pig, which was made into the movie Babe, but the Sophie books, while not as well known, are just as good, at least to me.

The series starts with Sophie's Snail (when she's 4) and ends with Sophie's Lucky (when she's 8). Throughout all six books, the reader sees Sophie mature, yet her essential nature remains the same. Of small and of stocky build, she is determined, forthright, and as unstoppable as a bulldozer. She does not approve of lying or crying. And, from book one, her strongest desire is to be a lady farmer. In Sophie's Snail, she has to content herself with her herds and flocks of wood lice, centipedes, and other creepy crawlies. By book two, she has a pet cat named Tom (later changed to Tomboy after she produces a litter of kittens); book three brings not only a rabbit named Beano, a gift from Great-great Aunt Al, but a terrier puppy christened Puddle lands on her lap on Christmas Day. The series ends with her much closer to her dream of owning a farm than she--or her readers--might have imagined.

I devoured the books one after the other. At the end it was sad to realize that they'll be no more books from Dick King-Smith. I suppose now I'll have to start Brian Jacques' Redwall series. That one does have a final book, Roque Crew, due out in May.

Quote of the Week

"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."

~ Frederick Douglass

Amazing Monty

Welcome back, Monty! Montgomery Gerald Morris, otherwise know as Monty, returns in Amazing Monty, the third book in an early chapter book series by Johanna Hurwitz. A first grader who excels at reading, Monty encounters surprise after surprise in the book's six chapters.

His first surprise comes about as a direct result of his reading skills. A sign in the school office offers two parakeets and a cage for free. Monty endures a long day waiting for school to end. After finally  securing his parents' permission, he finds out he was late and the birds have been promised to someone else. So imagine his surprise the next day when the birds show up in his classroom! His teacher announces that everyone will get a chance to care for the new class pets, Yankee and Doodle.

But that's not all that's in store for Monty. He loses his first tooth, helps rescue one of the parakeets when it escapes its cage, has an asthma attack while going through a car wash, and welcomes a baby sister into the family. With each new challenge, Monty rises to the occasion in a heartwarming yet realistic way.

Amazing Monty is a gentle story about a sensitive, responsible boy finding his strengths and capabilities. Although published in 2010, it has a rather old-fashioned feel. Monty and his friend Joey walk home from school on their own. Their teacher reads My Father's Dragon (published in 1944) to the class. And, most amazing of all, Monty's parents wait until the birth to learn the sex of their baby. But if some of the details are a bit dated, the important bits still ring true. First graders will forever be excited when that first wiggly tooth pops out, when a new pet joins the classroom, and certainly when they proudly hold their brand new baby sister for the first time.

Johanna Hurwitz, with more than 60 books under her belt, hits another one out of the ballpark. My only reservation is that the audience for early chapter books may be put off reading about a lowly first grader. Kids usually prefer to read about older, not younger, protagonists. Anik McGrory's illustrations of button-nosed first graders are charming and full of life.

Amazing Monty
by Johanna Hurwitz
illustrations by Anik McGrory
Candlewick Press, 112 pages
Published: 2010